


Karen Page, Eight Days Later

by MissIzzy



Series: Walking Behind With a Bucket [24]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 00:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16651237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: Back at the Bulletin, at least for the moment.





	Karen Page, Eight Days Later

_This is not even an opportunity at redemption Ross deserves, and maybe even we don’t deserve it either. But perhaps, right now, that doesn’t even matter. The future of not only our country, but humanity, may be at stake, and not just whether we survive, but what we become. In this time of great tragedy and loss, humanity can be a people that acknowledges the wrongs done against the vulnerable parts of our population…_

Karen has to pause there. She’s pretty sure the word  _vulnerable_  won’t make it to the published version of this article. Too many people will simply refuse to believe a superpowered population could be vulnerable, possibly even when they’ve been systematically hunted down and murdered for months.

But what the hell, she thinks. The acting editor in chief never liked her anyway, and back when he called her a week ago, he emphasized he was calling everyone who had once worked for the  _Bulletin_  and wasn’t now working for their competition, even as he also sent her straight to the SI press conference. Once they’ve got enough new hires, she’ll be shown the door no matter what she writes right now. And she’s got her reputation to maintain, one not too faded even by her year out of the business.

She resumes writing.  _…and try to do better in the future. But there is also the possibility that our fear and rage will instead make us give in to our basest instincts…_

Her eyes stray to her laptop’s clock; it’s late enough she’s now hoping Matt gets back, and soon. This is when she’s been doing most of her article writing: at night, when the day’s investigative work is usually finished, and right now she can’t sleep while he’s out as Daredevil. She’s too terrified over what he might do. With the exception of one night where they both crashed at Colleen’s place, she’s been continually sleeping in his apartment, not daring to leave him alone.

(What she really wants to write is something demanding why people like Foggy and Ellison died, and people like her didn’t. But what’s the use, when probably no one has the answer?)

Karen writes her fears onto her Word document, the ones she had even before all this started, of more mass deaths, of fascism deepening its hold on the world. When she’s done with that paragraph, she can’t help but think of the more local menaces. The Fisks are both dead, but they were hardly Nelson, Murdock, and Page’s only enemy.

The clatter and footsteps on the roof finally come. Karen forces herself to remain seated on the couch, typing out her close; it’ll be easier if she has the whole thing ready for revision once she’s seen to her boyfriend. Or possibly in the morning, if this takes very long. Maybe after sleeping a little too.

But Matt looks perfectly fine as he comes down the stairs. Karen can’t even spot much blood on him, and she’s gotten good at spotting that. “Nothing really going on out there tonight,” he tells her; he knows that information’s useful to her. “How’s the article?”

She ends up reading sections out loud as he changes into sweats. When she recites her final words,  _I hope to be wrong about Ross, and to not be wrong about humanity,_  he says, “You still have a way with words.”

“Still not going to law school,” she says, because neither of them are going to speak about about whose rhetoric ended up influencing her the most, since Matt wasn’t around for her to hear his. On immediate rereading, she does think maybe the  _Let us consider what we have learned most recently_ that opens her third paragraph wasn’t called for.

“Wasn’t suggesting it,” he says, and she doesn’t think he was, exactly, but she knows part of him wants it. Never mind that she can never replace whom they’ve both lost. “But keep writing for them as long as you can. Maybe you should blog.”

“Maybe.” She’s considered it, making a chronicle of the times they’re now living through. Ellison would probably tell her to do it.

He kisses her deeply before going to the bathroom to do a little bit of washing off, and Karen spends a few minutes just sitting where he left her, letting herself settle. She feels the grief, still too heavy in her chest.

Her phone chimes, and she feels the prickling at the back of her neck even before she looks down and sees it: a mass text from Mason about the latest info dump. Looks like she’ll be doing a lot of revisions to this one. She’ll probably be up all night.


End file.
